Now just hold on. I never said you are what your record in close games says you are.

Which coaches have the best records in close games? That’s a complicated question that either means everything or nothing, depending on whom you ask. But putting aside what it means, what are the actual results?

I defined a close game as one where a team was trailing or leading by three points entering the 4th quarter since 1940.1

The table below shows the coaching records in close games for all coaches who were head coaches in at least 20 close games. You can use the search box below to search for any individual coach. Note that coaches who coached prior to 1940 are included, but only their performances in games beginning in 1940 are listed below.

Wade, we would have won if you guys didn't blow us out the first three quarters.

Generally speaking, I think this list jives with what a lot of people would have guessed. Vince Lombardi and Marv Levy and Bill Belichick look good, while Norv Turner, Bruce Coslet and Wade Phillips look bad. Of course, that just begs the question: do we think think those men in the latter group are not great head coaches because they failed in close games, or is it that because they lost in close games that we now think that they’re overmatched as first in command?

Originally, I looked at all games that were within one score, but that proven to be even more unfair to the trailing teams. Teams trailing by one score entering the 4th quarter have won only 30% of all games since 1940. Conversely, teams trailing by 3 points have won 39% of the time. [↩]

What is this table sorted by? It's always difficult sorting a list with a large variance in the number of games coached. I used the binomial distribution to compute the likelihood that a fair coin would achieve such results. For example, Sean Payton went 17-6 in close games. There is only a 1.1% chance an unweighted coin would achieve 17 or more successes out of 23 flips. [↩]

I’m not sure how much this tells us. The coaches at the top are guys who won a lot of regular season games. Generally, that means they were coaching good teams (either because they had good players or because they coached up their players to be good). So good teams are more likely to be able to win the close games.

How about a comparison between these coaches records in close games and their record in non-close games?

Chase Stuart

On twitter, someone recommended I break it out by records in games where the team was winning by 3 or less, tied, or losing by 3 or less. That’s probably a good idea, and not that hard. I can also incorporate your suggestion in a future post.

Wintermute

Chase, congratulations on the new site. I just heard about it on The Audible (you should go on that show!).

Regarding this post, I was going to make the exact comment that Richie the first poster made. We need to see how many games Sean Peyton wins and then see how many close-games Sean Peyton wins. That will tell us if some coaches have some innate ability to not blink when the pressure is at maximum versus coaches who just had good teams that won no matter what the situation was. I wonder if there is a coach that was saddled with lousy players, had a poor record, yet was a great coach if the game was close. Hmm.

Chase Stuart

Wintermute,

While interesting to look at, I’m pretty sure the answers won’t be legitimate. Great teams are great because of how they do in non-close games, not because of how they do in close-games (in terms of predictive performance). Sean Payton has won 65% of his games, and 74% of his close-games. If he won only 50% of his regular games, I don’t think the takeaway is that he’s “more awesome” in close games than before, but rather, that he’s simply just a worse coach (subject to the usual caveats concerning how a coach’s record reflects his ability as a coach).

wsk

very interesting.
but much like quarterback comebacks–good freaking quarterbacks don’t trail going into the fourth quarter.
good baseball teams aren’t generally behind after seven.
rallying to win is a slightly weighted bi-distro for them.
good teams lead; bad coaches & quarterbacks are losing into the last period.